BBQ Brisket And Indian Curry? Lay's Wants You To Guess Their Four New Mystery Flavors

With the annual Lay's Do Us a Flavor contest, we've become familiar with unusual, innovative, and downright strange potato chips flavors. But now Lay's has created something entirely new. The potato chip brand has released bags of four mystery flavors based on 2016 trend predictions and want their fans to guess their identities following clues on social media.

Here are the trend predictions for 2016: "Indian and Japanese spices to be top trending cuisines in 2016," "new specialty cheeses on the scene", and "floral flavors take charge."

The Daily Meal staff got its hands on eight unlabeled bags of Lay's potato chips: Four bags contained flavors that can already be found on shelves, and the other four were entirely new varieties that will be revealed on Twitter later this month. Our expert panel of hungry editors who had not eaten lunch yet carefully deciphered the contents of each bag. We also voted for our favorite flavors:

Flavor #1: We couldn't agree on the contents of this one. Someone said cheddar, and another expert suggested a dill pickle flavor (a pre-existing Lay's product!), but based on trend predictions, it very well may be Indian Curry.

Flavor #2: This bag had a distinctly "stinky cheese" odor. One tester suggested parmesan while another suggested asiago. Based on the ingredients listed on the back of the bag, our final answer is Smoked Gouda.

Flavor #3: Most of our participants tasted the Sour Cream & Onion, or chive flavoring in this bag. That one was fairly easy.

Flavor #4: The overwhelming flavor in this variety was rosemary or oregano so our vote goes for Rosemary & Garlic.

Flavor #5: This was a favorite amongst our testers and with good reason: it was sweet, smoky and familiar, so we immediately thought of the pre-existing Kettle Cooked Mesquite Barbecue.

Flavor #6: This bag of chips had an unusually meaty taste. Some immediately were reminded of Southern barbecue and others thought of beef jerky. This new flavor could definitely be Smoked Brisket.

Flavor #7: This red-hot, super-spicy variety was reminiscent of Sriracha. It could only be one flavor: the Flamin' Hot bag.

Flavor #8: This was also an overwhelming favorite, although hard to pin down and identify. It was definitely spicy in a tangy, vinegary way, more like a Frank's hot sauce than the Flamin' Hot flavor. We took an educated guess at Habanero Chili for this one.

Overall, we're pretty excited for new Lay's potato chip varieties and hope to see number six or eight on shelves soon.